Request to buy this photoEamon Queeney | DispatchRob Rudolph of Golden Bear Lock and Safe changes the locks on the D&J Carryout at 1395 N. 4th St. That store and another were purchased yesterday and closed by Campus Partners, the development arm of Ohio State University.

Request to buy this photoEamon Queeney | DispatchAn employee of Buy Sell and Trade Used Equipment carries some shelving out of D&J Carryout at 1395 N. 4th St. in the Weinland Park neighborhood. D&J and Kelly’s Carryout at 1521 N. 4th were closed yesterday after being purchased by Campus Partners.

Request to buy this photoCAMPUS PARTNERSA drawing of a sample concept for the southwestern corner of N. 4th Street and 11th Avenue, where Kelly’s currently stands, shows a multistory development.

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Two carryout stores in Weinland Park closed for good yesterday after the development arm of Ohio
State University bought them and changed the locks to reduce crime and attract new residents to the
area.

Police secured both stores yesterday afternoon as workers covered up or took down signs. Only
hours after the deal, Kelly’s had been fenced off. Neither store was for sale before being
approached by Campus Partners.

Along with the $1.1 million, Campus Partners plans to spend $200,000 to clean up Kelly’s, which
is a former gas station. Most of the purchase cost is covered by a grant from Ohio State. The
Columbus Foundation and the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing also provided money.

In total, Ohio State provided $855,000 from revenue the university makes by leasing its
property, such as a Red Roof Inn on Ackerman Road. It does not come from tuition, student fees or
taxes.

What will replace the stores has yet to be decided; however, officials behind the deal said it
will help the neighborhood catch up with nearby areas such as Italian Village and stretches of
Summit Street that have added bars, coffee shops, restaurants and salons in recent years.

“This wasn’t a strategy of subtraction; it was a strategy of addition. We’re trying to add
something to the neighborhood that is better than what was there before,” said Keith Myers, Ohio
State’s associate vice president for Physical Planning and Real Estate and chairman of the board of
Campus Partners, which focuses on redeveloping urban areas near OSU.

“I wouldn’t suggest that this is a new strategy or a trend,” said Amanda Hoffsis, president of
Campus Partners. “Both sides feel good about the transaction at the end of the day.”

The owner of Kelly’s declined to comment. Omar Anwer, the D&J business owner, said he didn’t
want to sell but the property owner did.

Residents near both stores had mixed feelings about the change.

Donquise Morton, 21, said workers at Kelly’s would give his children candy or let him pay what
he could for a gallon of milk. “I’m sad to see it go,” Morton said. “Ever since I’ve been a kid, I’v
e been going to the store.”

Mike Hicks, 22, and David Turns, 24, were walking to Kelly’s to get change for the bus before
discovering the store was closed.

Turns said the problem isn’t the stores but the neighborhood. “The store owners, they’re not
police officers,” Turns said.

But Brandon Curry, 36, said from the porch of a N. 5th Street apartment that he avoided the
stores because of the “young people” hanging around them.

Campus Partners paid $750,000 for Kelly’s, which was last sold for $190,000 in 1992, according
to county auditor’s records. For the D&J site, the group paid $380,000. That store was last
sold in 2009 for $62,000. Beyond the grant from Ohio State, the Columbus Foundation paid $175,000
and the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing paid $75,000.

Those prices are higher than market value –– the owners had to be persuaded to sell –– but aren’t
“obscenely high,” said Michael Simpson, president of NAI Ohio Equities, which negotiated the
deals.

Hoffsis said the prices are “reasonable, given the changes in the community.”

Both stores have histories of violence: At least three people have died in shootings at those
stores since the 1990s. But violence has tempered in recent years. Police were called to Kelly’s 11
times in the past year and to D&J twice, mostly for minor disturbances such as theft or public
intoxication.

Both also have been cited by state liquor officials for violations.

“It’s kind of the gathering, hangout spot, which is intimidating, especially for new people
coming into the neighborhood,” said Isabel Toth, president and CEO of Community Properties of Ohio,
which is a subsidiary of the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing and manages affordable housing in
the area.

“It’s been intimidating for some of our young, female residents,” Toth said. In a 2010
neighborhood survey paid for by the Columbus Foundation, residents named those two corner stores
among five where they felt unsafe.

Columbus Foundation President Doug Kridler said his organization is “intent on converting
sources and places of fear into places of opportunity and safety.”

“These carryouts were way stations for delinquency and crime,” Kridler said. “We’re investing
for a better and safer Weinland Park.”

The foundation recently provided a $2 million low-interest loan to Campus Partners to help
redevelop 23 row houses and duplexes along E. 11th Avenue. Wagenbrenner Development is doing the
project.

Brandyn McElroy, president of the Weinland Park Community Civic Association, said he doesn’t
think the community will object to the closings. “We don’t have a shortage of corner stores, small
shops, in the Weinland Park area,” he said.

Columbus City Councilman Zach Klein, head of the council’s safety committee, said he is happy to
see the stores gone. The council has cracked down on other nearby carryout stores that have been
linked to crime recently.

The City Council urged the state in late 2012 not to renew liquor permits for two carryouts on
E. 5th Ave., including S&K Market. The state revoked liquor licenses for that store last year,
and one of its owners was sentenced to 35 years in prison after the store repeatedly sold drugs
known as bath salts.

The council had not objected to Kelly’s or D&J recently.

Campus Partners plans to sell the D&J property within about a month to the Ohio Capital
Corporation for Housing for $25,000. That group said it will host public meetings to gather ideas
for redevelopment.

Toth said her group knows residents bought food at the store. She wants to add a more-healthful
option to the neighborhood, either at the D&J location or elsewhere.

Betty Lindsey hopes so. She lives about a block from Kelly’s on the other side of N. 4th Street.
She said she visited the store frequently for necessities such as toilet paper, noodles and
juice.

“I don’t know where to go,” she said. “You have to go out of the neighborhood to get what you
need.”

Campus Partners has no plans to sell the Kelly’s site, but Wagenbrenner Development is working
with the group to clean up two underground gas tanks and to brainstorm uses. A drawing of a sample
concept depicts a three-story, street-front building that stretches down the block.

“We’re focused on understanding the work that the Wagenbrenners are doing on 11th Avenue,”
Hoffsis said. “And then we’re going to talk to the community and think, ‘How can this be a part of
that major change?’ ”